Brother

The long-awaited second novel from David Chariandy, whose debut, Soucouyant, was nominated for nearly every major literary prize in Canada and published internationally. An intensely beautiful, searingly powerful, tightly constructed novel, Brother explores questions of masculinity, family, race, and identity as they are played out in a Scarborough housing complex during the sweltering heat and simmering violence of the summer of 1991. With shimmering prose and mesmerizing precision, David Chariandy takes us inside the lives of Michael and Francis. They are the sons of Trinidadian immigrants, their father has disappeared and their mother works double, sometimes triple shifts so her boys might fulfill the elusive promise of their adopted home. Coming of age in The Park, a cluster of town houses and leaning concrete towers in the disparaged outskirts of a sprawling city, Michael and Francis battle against the careless prejudices and low expectations that confront them as young men of black and brown ancestry -- teachers stream them into general classes; shopkeepers see them only as thieves; and strangers quicken their pace when the brothers are behind them. Always Michael and Francis escape into the cool air of the Rouge Valley, a scar of green wilderness that cuts through their neighbourhood, where they are free to imagine better lives for themselves. Propelled by the pulsing beats and styles of hip hop, Francis, the older of the two brothers, dreams of a future in music. Michael's dreams are of Aisha, the smartest girl in their high school whose own eyes are firmly set on a life elsewhere. But the bright hopes of all three are violently, irrevocably thwarted by a tragic shooting, and the police crackdown and suffocating suspicion that follow. With devastating emotional force David Chariandy, a unique and exciting voice in Canadian literature, crafts a heartbreaking and timely story about the profound love that exists between brothers and the senseless loss of lives cut short with the shot of a gun.

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I highly recommend reading this book - many can learn more than a thing or two from the story. It ended up being more than a “Black Lives Matter” or black peoples injustices story.. it was so much more. It touched upon single parent families, marginalized communities, immigration, growing up, etc. So sad and unfortunately realistic. You felt present through Chariandy’s writing - well written. I can’t praise it enough!

Set in Scarborough, events in the life of 2 brothers growing up black, raised by a low income single mother. Think resilience, family values, supportive community. Heartbreaking and memorable. Definitely worth the read.

Not sure why people love this so much. Definitely some deft moves: the way siren lights distort the neighbourhood, the dangerous electrical pole to agency on the first page, some aspects of the relationships. But the story's catalyst (drug dealer is shot dead, drawing harsh police attention to the neighbourhood) doesn't really work because it's never made clear why this particular violent episode inspired the cops to be dicks rather than some previous episode. Aren't the cops endlessly dicks in places like Scarborough? Shouldn't their oppressive behaviour have been a steady part of the setting rather than something Chariandy needed to trigger?

Language is also a huge issue. The voice doesn't make much sense, like why does the narrator use near-Victorian English to tell his story, fetching this, placing things upon that, and pausing to guffaw? And how, exactly, do you fumblingly put a condom on inside out? There are a lot of clumsy sentence fragments that don't add the depth the author intends (a tinfoil-in-the-window entry is so clunky it's funny), and the overall story is more a collection of immigrants-in-Canada tropes than anything else. The police shooting at its heart definitely makes it topical, but there's no way this book is worth the $200,000 in prize money showered, um, upon it.

What a great book! What I find valuable about this story is that it gives you a glimpse of the unprivileged realities that are often hidden in a privileged country like Canada. It touches on politically charged topics such as racism, police brutality, discrimination, priviledge, immigration and even mental health, in a subtle -and not so much- ways.
This book won't make you smile,please know that it's emotional and if you are connected enough to the story, it's even enraging and frustrating.

My thanks to the library for ordering this remarkable book from a Canadian author. We know in the beginning that things may not turn out well and yet we find so much dignity in the observations made by Michael and Aisha and Jelly. What a wonderful book and no wonder it is considered a gem here and in Canada. A must read.

Summary

Michael and his older brother Francis live in Toronto with their single mother. They are from Trinidadian decent. The story begins with a grown Michael welcoming a visting friend into their home, you can tell from the beginning that somthing is not right in the home. There are various stories relayed from the boys youth. Discussing when they used to play by the creek, a trip to the mall gone wrong, Michael going with his brother to the barber shop, fights and some abuse from their mother, the sexual awakening of Michael, two boys afraid of criminals, a one time trip to Trinidad, a failed reunion with their father, and a failed audition resulting in a brawl. There are also glimpses of the present. Michael talking with his friend Aisha, a rememberance party stopped abruptly, the injury of his mother and her hospitalization. The story comes to a close when the reader learns of Francis' death at the hands of the police. The death of her son causes the mother to have a mental break, and Michael to shut himself off from the world. The ending is quite abrupt as we dont see how the mother copes with the death and what happens to Michael.